This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Atlantic Monthly
Nov 29, 2005
What made you decide to write about Lincoln in the context of his cabinet? Was that your original concept for the book or did it change shape as you worked on it?
No, it definitely emerged as I went along. At first I really had no idea how to approach Lincoln other than knowing that I was going to live with him and learn about the Civil War and understand him. It was just kind of a leap of faith I took at the beginning that as I got into it I might be able to find my own angle into
Source: The Independent
Nov 29, 2005
[By Charles Glass]
'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.'
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations General Assembly Resolution, 10 December 1948.
One of my first stories as a reporter for The Observer was a student strike in 1977 at the Lo
Source: The Guardian
Nov 29, 2005
Napoleon massacred more than 100,000 Caribbean slaves and should be remembered as a genocidal dictator and inspiration for Hitler rather than a military genius and founder of modern France, a French historian said yesterday.
"I refuse to bow down before the statue any longer, I have opened my eyes," said Claude Ribbe, a respected black academic and part of a governmental commission on human rights whose book, Napoleon's Crime, is published this week, on the bicentenary of
Source: The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
Nov 28, 2005
Benedikt Isserlin, who has died aged 89, was a philologist, archaeologist and historian with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the cultures and languages of the ancient Near East.
In his popular but scholarly Israelites (2001), Isserlin synthesised the social, historical, geographical and archaeological evidence of ancient Israel from the earliest beginnings to the Babylonian exile. He analysed the culture and society of the nation in the wider context of near eastern civilisations, and
Source: NYT Book Review
Nov 27, 2005
JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN is among a handful of scholars who have changed the way Americans view their past. It wasn't so long ago that mainstream histories of the United States ignored the experience of minorities or employed the sort of stereotypes that most readers today would find offensive. An African-American, raised and educated in an era of stifling race prejudice and legal segregation, Franklin, now 90 years old, has spent his career exposing the bigotry that once dominated American intellectu
Source: Independent (UK)
Nov 27, 2005
David Irving's recent life has made him look more like an outlaw than an historian. Broke, shunned and declared "persona non grata" across half the planet, it's been quite a comedown for the world's most notorious Holocaust denier.
His latest comeuppance has been an episode as shabby as any and may force him to spend years in prison.His Viennese lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, insists he has changed his mind about "the views he is so famous f
Source: Guardian (UK)
Nov 27, 2005
Behind the neo-gothic town hall in the heart of Vienna sits the Josefstadt jail. This large prison, attached to the city's main criminal court, is a constant cause of complaint from the well-heeled burghers of the district, who would prefer to see the low life accommodated elsewhere.
Now the 1,200 inmates have been joined by an infamous foreigner; David Irving will be confined to a Josefstadt cell over Christmas and the New Year, pending trial on criminal charges deriving from his d
Source: NYT
Nov 26, 2005
An Austrian judge on Friday denied a request for bail for the British historian David Irving, who is accused of violating the country's laws against denying the Holocaust.
The ruling meant that Mr. Irving, 67, whose highly eccentric and widely rejected views of Nazi history have gained him worldwide notoriety, will remain in prison for at least four more weeks while Austrian prosecutors prepare an indictment against him.Austria, which was annexed to
Source: Independent (London)
Nov 25, 2005
One of a series of outstanding scholars to hold the Camden Chair of Ancient History at Oxford, a position long associated with Roman History in particular, Peter Brunt made lasting contributions to the study both of ancient Greece and of Rome. He brought to the task not only an enviably clear mind, an elegant Gibbonian style, and an immunity to fashion and prejudice, but two striking attitudes that were features of the man as much as of his work. The one was a critical bent that rendered him cou
Source: scotsman.com
Nov 24, 2005
A lawyer for British historian David Irving said on the eve of a court hearing that Irving admitted past statements could be interpreted as denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers - but now acknowledges they existed.
Prosecutors charged Irving earlier this week under an Austrian law that makes denying the Holocaust a crime.
The charges stem from two speeches Irving delivered in Austria in 1989 in which he allegedly denied the existence of gas chambers. If convicted,
Source: NYT
Nov 24, 2005
Joseph J. Thorndike, a former managing editor of Life magazine who in 1954 helped found American Heritage magazine, died Tuesday at his home in Harwich, Mass. He was 92.
The cause was congestive heart failure and complications of Alzheimer's disease, his son John said.
Mr. Thorndike, the longtime editorial director of American Heritage, started the magazine with two Life colleagues, Oliver Jensen and James Parton. Mr. Jensen died in June, at 91.
A general-i
Source: Asia Times
Nov 23, 2005
[Dr Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies, China and Korea Center, the Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia.]
It was a fine night in Pyongyang in mid-October
as I walked a deserted street under the unusually bright stars of the North Korean sk
Source: Haaretz
Nov 23, 2005
Austrian prosecutors on Tuesday filed charges against British historian David Irving for allegedly violating an Austrian law that makes Holocaust denial a crime, a prosecutor said.
Irving, an expert on the Third Reich who has claimed that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, was detained November 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989 that makes Holocaust denial a crime.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Nov 23, 2005
[Allan M. Winkler is a professor of history at Miami University of Ohio. His most recent book is Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America (Pearson Longman, 2005).]
The first time I ever played my guitar in class almost ended my musical career. I was teaching American history for a year at the University of Helsinki, and as I prepared to lecture about the civil-rights movement, I decided to sing a couple of songs. I was not an accomplished guitarist. I had bought my fir
Source: China Radio International
Nov 22, 2005
Gavin Menzies, author of the best-selling and controversial "1421: The Year China Discovered America," claimed two more major pieces of evidence to prove his theory.
Gavin Menzies, author of the best-selling and controversial "1421: The Year China Discovered America," claimed two more major pieces of evidence to prove his theory. He presented the new findings during his Reading Month lecture in Shenzhen on Saturday.
Menzies said the latest evidence is a
Source: Newsletter of the American Revolution Round Table
Nov 22, 2005
Stanley Weintraub, who entertained us superbly with his talk on his previous book, George Washington's Christmas Farewell, was equally fascinating in his discussion of his latest work, Iron Tears, America's Battle For Freedom, Britain's Quagmire -- the story of the British home front during the American Revolution. He startled everyone by suggesting that George III might be considered one of America's founding fathers. That was what he was called in America and in England before the Revolution.
Source: Press Release -- Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)
Nov 21, 2005
The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) awarded its 2005 academic freedom prize to the Workshop for Armenian-Turkish Scholarship for its pioneering and successful efforts to address controversial issues raised by the destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during World War One.
MESA made the award on Sunday evening, November 20, at an awards ceremony during its 40th annual meeting, held in Washington, D.C. The group cited the work of Professo
Source: South China Morning Post
Nov 19, 2005
He's written a string of biographies, with prime ministers Tony Blair, John Major and Winston Churchill among his subjects and Margaret Thatcher next on his agenda. He directs plays with actresses such as Greta Scacchi, appears on television as a political commentator and writes profusely in the media.
Anthony Seldon, the master-elect of Britain's infamous Wellington College, is more than a principal. He is a personality who has no qualms about his high profile - he believes his out
Source: NYT
Nov 19, 2005
Bernard Lewis, the famed Middle East historian, has joined Jack Kemp, Steve Forbes and others in organizing a legal defense fund for I. Lewis Libby, the indicted aide of Vice President Cheney.
The goal is to raise about $5 million.
Source: BBC News
Nov 19, 2005
The revisionist British historian David Irving is likely to remain in custody in Austria for at least a week, prosecutors say.
The authorities are considering whether to put him on trial for denying the Nazi mass extermination of Jews, the public prosecutor's spokesman said.
He was detained a week ago on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws that make it a crime to deny the Holocaust.
Mr Irving was stopped in the southern province of Styria, en route to
